


Resort to Stratagem

by chantefable



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe, Courtship, Cultural Differences, Gift Giving, M/M, Partnership, Spies & Secret Agents, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 21:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5064229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/pseuds/chantefable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illya Kuryakin is continuously frustrated with the internal power dynamics of their UNCLE team. </p><p>Which leads to him overlooking things that should have been obvious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resort to Stratagem

The shameless CIA mug is pissing Illya off.

It’s not anything in particular, more like the totality of every aspect of existence somehow sullied by physical or metaphysical contact with the obnoxious American. But if asked, Illya can give a very long list of particulars.

The way Solo smiles, teeth bared, empty eyes glinting – like a total psychopath. His atrocious American accent that makes half the things he says completely unintelligible. His lazy bow-legged walk, as if he’s spent the night fucking too hard. His obsession with completely unnecessary objects – the way he stocks every safe-house with cheese graters and bottle openers, squirrels away record-players and decanters, demands different refrigerators and washing machines. 

Illya can go on, talk about Solo’s fetish for expensive food, and never mind that it’s unpalatable if it’s served in a Michelin star restaurant. His fetish for being seen, the way the man preens like a peacock even when he’s lurking in an ambush, because what if someone notices him after all. His vomit-inducing compulsive materialism. His Brioni shirts and his Zegna suits, and the heavily scented pomade he puts on his hair.

It’s a very, very long list that Illya will not share unprompted because a good spy doesn’t just volunteer information, even when it’s something like this, as obvious as a punch to the face. But give him a cue and it’s like opening the floodgates. This is why Gaby does not ask. Ever.

But Solo’s shameless mug is pissing Illya off day in and day out, something that all of them are aware of, Waverly included, and even though Illya is keeping a lid on it in the spirit of international cooperation – he will not disappoint Oleg Aleksandrovitch by making the KGB agent the first one to crack under the pressure of joint operations! – it is still taking its toll. 

Something needs to be done. Illya is aware that he must shake things up, change the layout and catch Solo off-guard somehow. The thief is blatantly exploiting the situation, pushing Illya’s buttons and being intentionally brazen because he knows it gets under Illya’s skin. It’s all part of his own private battle plan, an idiotic strategy to seize control in their little group, because a pissed off Illya is twitchy, reckless, on the edge of destruction and therefore easy to push around, and when they’re locked in this match – if you can even call it that, more like Solo sending the ball between Illya’s goalposts, time and time again – Gaby just withdraws, exasperated and unwilling to stand in this mess. And as a result, Solo fucking calls the shots, the disingenuous jackass.

Really, what can you expect from someone whose name is Napoleon.

Therefore, something needs to be done. Illya hates being backed into a corner like this, it makes his hackles rise and something ugly and hysterically chauvinistic rear its head up deep inside, calling for dominance or, if all else fails, an outlet of pointless violence.

Illya does not like pointless violence. He hates how easily Solo can push him to the edge, until Illya is a hairsbreadth away from a destructive episode, just by being Solo.

And so Illya decides to deal them another round, this time from his own deck. He does what anyone does in a hemmed-in situation: he feints. And fooling Solo turns out to be easier than Illya expected conning a con man to be, because Illya comes so far out of the left field that Solo never even sees it coming.

/

It starts with tea. 

Not the milky British thing that Waverly has them gagging on during briefings at the temporary headquarters in the City of Westminster, but real tea – black and tangy, served with sweet jam and lemon. Solo opens his eyes comically when he sees Illya in the kitchen: he’s used to having the kitchen claimed as _his_ territory, and even though they’ve only moved into this safe-house in Bilbao yesterday, it’s true that the space is already marked with Solo’s unmistakable scent.

But Illya just looms confidently, slightly leaning against the window sill cluttered with flower pots and enjoying the stirrings of triumphant joy in his chest as Solo, wonder of wonders, sits down and shuts up to have some fucking tea.

Amazingly, Solo doesn’t say anything cutting about Illya, Illya’s character, or Illya’s role in the upcoming mission. He eats the jam straight out of the jar instead of stirring a spoonful in his tea, the uncultured swine, but whatever, it’s not like Illya has to marry him and bear with his bad tea habits forever.

/

After that, it’s wine. 

If Illya were doing this for real, he’d have given something else as a gift – a book, a trinket, or at least a tin of cookies. Then again, if Illya were doing this courting thing for real, he’d never be doing it _for Solo_. This is just a game-changer. So, wine it is. Illya spends quite some time tracking down a bottle that might meet Solo’s approval, but they’re in Moldova and Illya has the advantage of knowing more about the region than his CIA-issue partner. Solo just blinks slowly when presented with the bottle, fucking blue eyes empty as usual when he glances at the label, but Illya knows he’s scored a goal when Solo’s face changes the moment he takes a sip.

Solo is clearly somewhat confused by what is going on, and even though he keeps finding pressure points that make Illya want to howl while they’re in Chişinău, there are moments, sometimes even long moments, when he appears a little more genuine. As if Illya’s traditionalist overtures have knocked the smug mask off a little, and he and Gaby get an occasional glimpse of someone less manipulative and artificial, just a human interacting with other humans. Human Solo is capable of actual normal things, like surprise and confusion, and is less flippant. 

It’s a huge relief to work when human Solo shows his face, and Illya begins to eagerly wait for these precious moments.

/

In Helsinki, it’s a blanket.

All right, truth be told, Illya would have probably brought Solo an extra blanket anyway, even if it wasn’t such an important feature in his current distraction tactic, because Finland is fucking cold in winter. Illya is not a heartless jerk. He did remind Gaby to pack accordingly, and made sure he had extra sweaters before the flight in case any of them forgot. But the point is that in Helsinki, he brings Solo a blanket, warm and fuzzy and large enough to be comfortably wrapped around Solo’s stocky frame when he’s shivering even after a good bath and a few shots of vodka, still shaken from having to chase the suspect of the week through the snow and sleet.

Solo gives him a very suspicious glare and says something snide that fails to have its usual triggering effect on Illya, mostly because Solo’s speech is slurred from the vodka and his face is flushed. He looks obnoxiously adorable huddling in Illya’s blanket, and it gets under Illya’s skin in a completely different way.

Oh no.

/

In Athens, Solo is pissed off.

Frankly, Illya is more than a little pleased with that – the vindictive, childish part of him that significantly withered but did not quite die in the course of rigorous KGB training and various character evaluations rejoices that the tables are turned and that it’s Solo who is slipping now, angry and even a little ugly as he stands arms akimbo in their hotel suite, tapping his leather-clad foot impatiently. But there is also another part of Illya that is miserable and kind of shriveling under Solo’s hostile glare, a part that wants to retreat and give up the terrain. Illya does not recognize this part. 

It has him noticing how thick the air has become in the hotel suite, lacking warmth and something screamingly familiar that Illya hasn’t known he’s attuned to.

“What the fuck is your problem, Peril,” Solo hisses, furious, which makes Illya frown and open his mouth to begin reading from his very long list of problems, starting from Solo’s walk and talk, then food preferences and fashion fetish, and so on, but he finds himself tongue-tied. 

Somehow, none of those issues seem quite unmanageable just now. These past weeks, with Solo ever so slightly off-kilter because some part of his brain was constantly engaged, trying to make sense of Illya’s outdated alpha moves that did not belong in the context of their UNCLE relationship in the slightest – these past weeks have been all right. As if a tiny dose of distraction and confusion was just the thing to add in order to trigger a different chemical reaction in the formula of Napoleon Solo, making his jibes sharp but not cutting, his manipulations thorough but not abusive, and the way he pushed Illya – no longer vicious but something else. Assessing, perhaps.

“This is completely out of line, and you, of all people -” Solo spits out, and Illya’s brain gets stuck on the fact that he does not like Solo’s voice at all right now, cold and steely. His thoughts are in disarray and he struggles to figure out what Solo was going to say before he cut himself off. 

Illya can usually tell: in the field, they are like a well-oiled mechanism, finishing each other’s thoughts and complementing each other’s movements. But right now, Illya’s mind has gone completely blank.

Gaby unlocks the door and strides in without knocking, but seeing Illya and Solo standing almost nose to nose she stops in her tracks and raises an inquisitive eyebrow. Illya doesn’t know what is going on either, just stands there, Solo’s Zegna suit brushing against Illya’s leather jacket, and there is not a hint of tremor in Illya’s hands but he feels backed into a corner. He feels exhausted and beaten.

Gaby sniffs the air cautiously and her other eyebrow joins the first one, disappearing in her messy fringe. Illya has an irrational urge to snarl and snap at her, which is something that never happens. He and the other alpha are thick as thieves.

Solo just narrows his shameless eyes at her and waits, not moving an inch, but they’re standing close enough that Illya notices the way his back tenses and his scent changes into something slightly more acrid. That, too, is strange. Solo is never uncomfortable with either of them, apart or together, never acting or expecting to be treated as anyone but an equal, and that is exactly right. 

Illya suddenly realizes that that is what he has liked from the start about their joint operations, about being partnered with Gaby and Solo – that they are on equal footing, alpha and omega, just like it is supposed to be. From each according to their ability, and one assumed just as able as the other, working side by side without prejudice for the greater good of all. Just like it’s supposed to be after 1980 when they finally build communism in the USSR. If they will. Maybe they will have to work on it a little longer.

And then he exhales loudly, warm air escaping his mouth and disturbing the fine hairs above Solo’s ear because he hasn’t put any product in it today. It dawns on Illya how very different it must be for Solo, born and bred on a completely different ideology: where omegas are good enough to work in wartime but must slink away when the alphas come home; where the pressure to be picture perfect and decorative is ingrained through omnipresent imagery, glossy magazines, silver screens and advertisement billboards everywhere; where alpha supremacy is just the norm while equality is a dangerous imbalance, and the entire system of beliefs clenches around every omega’s heart like an iron hand in a velvet glove.

It dawns on Illya that Solo is used to swimming against the current, which is why he is a mean fish with sharp fins and vicious teeth, but still colorful and breathtakingly beautiful, because he must be all these things. That is how he got so far in the world that had him play a rigged game (and Illya is not talking about Solo’s CIA contract right now): by gambling and cheating. The realization is a ray of light, or rather, a lethal laser: Solo has been carving out a place for himself that he has never learned to expect to be given without a fight. Solo had felt safe or at least confident that neither Gaby nor Illya would stoop so low to make the fight personal, take it to the dangerous grounds of intimacy instead of abstract, impersonal politics of biology. 

And then Illya went and ruined it all, marched straight ahead completely without thinking and didn’t even notice what he’d trampled on. Panic makes darkness creep up at the edges of Illya’s vision because he begins to suspect he’s casually ruined something precious.

(Something he could have craved seriously and deeply if given the chance.)

Illya feels like a, well, a disingenuous jackass, and a mixture of shame and something bitter and sharp twisting his insides makes him blush hotly under Gaby’s shrewd stare. She clicks her tongue and swaggers through the room, brushing against Solo’s arm deliberately and giving him a peck on the cheek before disappearing in her bedroom.

Illya is feeling very lost. His maps of the territory have been wrong all along, and he suddenly sees roads he hasn’t known about, high places occupied by old ghosts, and sunny spots where he might have been welcome. Illya feels like a fool.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and his voice comes out hollow. 

He doesn’t say ‘I didn’t mean it’, because Solo knows that he didn’t mean it. That is the real problem. That Illya pretended to court him when he didn’t mean it, like a foul power play. 

That he turned his vexation with Solo, and the many vexations with himself and with the KGB that Illya could so comfortably suppress when he had Solo to be pissed at for whatever reason, into an excuse to start a fight on uneven ground despite the fact that they were _partners_. And Solo, for all that he’d try to establish what Illya’s breaking point was, did not expect Illya to have the nerve to betray him like that.

Illya would never betray a partner. Not Gaby, not Solo. Not _consciously_. 

Except he went and did. And had the gall to enjoy himself in the process. 

“I’m sorry,” Illya repeats, and this time Solo turns around and meets his eyes.

Solo’s own eyes are stormy blue with dark flecks and there is tension around his mouth. Illya notices that his lips are a pale shade of pink, and he wonders if they are soft to the touch. If they would turn their usual color if Illya kissed them. If everything could go back to normal then, business as usual. All fair.

Of course not. That is why Illya has always been a regular operative, not someone who plans missions and makes decisions. His strategic choices are shit even if his tactics hit the mark.

Look what he has done now, the ground scorched between him and Solo.

Illya stands rooted to the spot, suddenly aware that he reeks: the adrenaline spike from the earlier realization, the guilt and Solo’s proximity make his body pump out pheromones like he’s in a rut. It’s crass and doubly embarrassing under the circumstances.

Illya really wishes he were a better man, one who could honestly say he hasn’t meant to mock Solo with an alpha display, but he isn’t delusional and neither is Solo, and with both of them knowing what has been going on and why, Illya would just be driving the wedge in deeper with the platitudes. It is not what he wants. He wants to build bridges.

Solo is his partner, and Illya respects him. Grudgingly, yes, and he gets the urge to strangle Solo from time to time, yes, but for all that Illya considers the American obnoxious, he has never thought of Solo as an inherently lesser being. If anything, Illya resorted to fighting dirty for leverage because he never assumed that the two of them, the three of them, were anything but equal. It stupidly never occurred to him that as far as Solo was concerned, Illya and Gaby had far more chips to play than Solo could have, even with a few hidden up his sleeve.

Solo’s still glaring at Illya like he wants him to catch fire, but some of the tension drains from his body. Illya isn’t sure what he can say to convince the other man that his regret is genuine. 

Illya isn’t sure what he _wants_ to say, really. He feels like there is some contentious position just within reach, but neither he nor Solo are confident where to move and why.

Illya doesn’t know what he wants, except maybe for Solo to smile at him, baring his obscenely white teeth, and still have that human, alive glint in his blue eyes, like now.

He really wants to kiss Solo right now.

It’s a hemmed-in situation and Illya feints, forces himself to relax and step away from Solo’s body heat and scent – no longer acrid but familiar and heady again. Illya throws up his hands, slow and awkward, twists his face in a self-deprecating expression.

“Bad form, Cowboy. Won’t happen anymore,” murmurs Illya, infusing his voice with as much camaraderie and detachment as possible, so that it is clear that everything is just a bad joke, poor taste, just pulling Solo’s pigtails to throw the cheeky American mug off his game so that Illya doesn’t have to dance to his tune all the time during the missions and the downtime. 

He keeps his body language non-threatening and his facial expression dumb, and Illya knows that he can pull off the latter at least, mock-complimented during his training often enough. He just has to convince Solo that the underhanded courting was merely a half-hearted prank, a play for power among agents on assignment. Illya will work out a way to make amends; Solo will understand if it’s all for the job, strictly business – like sparring but with emotions, to see who comes on top. Illya will grovel if he has to. It will go back to normal then, like before.

Solo most certainly doesn’t have to know about the ticking bomb Illya has just discovered in his chest, branded with Solo’s name and with Solo’s smug mug painted on the side, just like the way those Americans put pin-up girls on their missiles. 

Illya himself is not ready for this discovery, and he is not ready for the bomb to blow, shattering their UNCLE unit and Illya’s foolish heart.

Oleg Aleksandrovitch shouldn’t have joked about Siberia, should have really sent Illya’s stupid head over there, he’d be of more use as a lumberjack than KGB.

Solo, on the other hand, is too good for the CIA, too good for UNCLE, too good for anyone, damn him, because he sees right through Illya’s feint and steps back into Illya’s personal space, keeps advancing while Illya keeps backing down. Is this dancing again. Illya doesn’t want to dance.

Solo is too close as they circle the room and he knows too much about Illya, things he’s wheedled out with targeted insults and brazen shots in the dark: how Illya sleeps, drinks, eats, thinks, what sets him off into blind rage and what keeps him on the edge. Illya pushes furniture out of the way not to trip and keeps staring at Solo as if hypnotized, because he knows the way Solo likes his tea and the way he unwinds after the job, all his earlier exuberant movements contained, conserving energy. He knows what kind of jam Solo likes. He wants to know the way it makes his mouth taste when Solo’s lips are already full and flushed from hot tea.

Illya wants Solo’s sweet scent – which has already become familiar, something that belongs where everything that is right and good with the world belongs – on his skin at all times.

Why did he engage when he shouldn’t have, when there are positions never meant to be contested and fortresses never meant to be besieged? Illya has already lost both the battle and the war. He has only just realized what his true desired endgame would have been. 

Solo is watching him the way he watches dangling diamond earrings and opening safe doors, pressing his advantage until Illya is truly backed into a corner, the wall a hard pressure against his shoulder blades. Solo always knows which road to take and where to attack. Illya is ready to plead.

“What the fuck is your problem, Peril,” says Solo, shakes his head like he does when Illya breaks a lock pick and Solo has to step in before they all find themselves in deep shit.

Illya stands very still and tries to focus on his own pulse where it’s heavy and painful: in the vein on his temple, in his carotid artery. Solo is close enough to smell him, all the layers of Illya’s musk: anger, fear, shame, desire. Let it go, Solo. Never mind.

“For someone who runs so fast you’re sure slow on the uptake,” says Solo, going for a joking tone, even though Illya can see that it costs him, that he is still fuming. “Or maybe you just outrun your own good judgment.”

Solo’s mouth contorts into his habitual vicious smirk that belies his dazed expression, and Illya has never wanted to kiss anyone more.

He is desperate. Which means he has no choice left but to fight.

The back of Illya’s head hits the wall a split second before Solo begins to pull back and Illya immediately feels something surge between them, like electricity, Solo’s expression turning raw and predatory as his eyes go to the submissively exposed column of Illya’s throat.

There is no permanence in war and Illya changes his course in accordance with the changed circumstances, admitting the truth before it’s dragged out of him, charging forward with a complete admission to see his adversary react. Illya’s body is like a furnace and his smell is thick and pungent. He wants, openly, and he allows his face to show it, lets the enemy take a peek at the secret plans of his city.

Solo’s chest is almost brushing against Illya’s and the few millimeters of distance make Illya fraught, leave him straining, force a soft whine through his clenched teeth. He has already seen the triumph writ on Solo’s face, knows it, but there’s also something else that Illya cannot parse. He cannot tell if it is cold and strong or warm and cruel, only that this is some kind of weapon that he has nothing to counter with.

Illya keeps his arms at his sides, unsteady fingers scrambling at the wall for purchase when Solo gives him just the kind of smile Illya longed for minutes ago. Illya is not ready. It feels like a sucker punch. It’s a gorgeous smile.

It stays on Solo’s face when he leans infinitesimally closer, rises on his tiptoes – and damn, still their chests don’t collide – and grazes his fingertips against Illya’s sweaty neck, right where he must reek the strongest, hot blood rushing under the skin.

Illya has an awful insight that the enemy has read far more of his secret plans than Illya bargained for, that he let Solo see more in his face than he was going to. Much, much more.

“Try again, Peril,” whispers Solo in Illya’s ear before pulling away completely, flaunting that bow-legged strut until he disappears behind the door of his room and Illya can finally catch his breath, sagging against the wall.

Illya doesn’t know who wins but he knows that there are commands to be obeyed. So he stays awake long past midnight, hunched over the chessboard where neither black nor white have moved, thinking what he can give Solo tomorrow.

Now that he has been allowed to try.

/

And in the end, it is Gaby who wins, of course. They should have seen it coming: she seized the advantage of them being constantly engaged, making trouble for each other and then wrapped around each other, and imperceptibly shifted the balance in her favor, like a general who lets two armies wear each other out before sweeping in with her troops and staking her claim to the coveted ground. She wins and she leads, her position undisputed and unassailable now that both Illya and Solo are used to her subtle handling.

This is why Gaby will rise to Waverly’s position in UNCLE one day, and Illya will always be a simple operative, under one name or another. And Solo will always be Solo, playing his own game. But as far as Illya is concerned, as long as they have each other’s back and carry each other’s scent, it’s a fine way to live.


End file.
